Sassafras Trees

 I'm pretty sure every place I've lived since I first moved out of my parents' home, we've planted a magnolia tree. Probably 15 or 20 years ago, we started planting sassafras trees in our yards.

Here, we have two trees that are small. We had three but . . deer love them!!  This is probably their fourth year. Vince rigged up some fencing to protect the two remaining trees but it needs a bit of sprucing up.

An old fashioned type root beer can be made from the roots. There's been some talk about it not being safe to drink so . . I doubt anyone is going to go foraging for sassafras roots but do some research before you do it.

When I was a child, my dad would take us out in the woods and find a few sassafras roots to bring home and he would make root beer. We didn't have Soda Streams back then and I doubt the little store in our little town even had fizzy water so we always had very flat, odd tasting root beer so I was never impressed. If I come across roots that I could harvest, I may try it again.

Besides them being pretty, I grow them for the leaves.  For gumbo lovers, the file' used in a bowl of gumbo is ground up dried sassafras leaves. Instructions for making file' can be found here. For most of us, gumbo is a cold weather dish. Harvesting the leaves is best done just before the leaves begin to change colors so the timing is perfect in about late August to mid-September to harvest the leaves, dry them, run them through the little Ninja chopper, sift them and have "fresh" file' for gumbo season.

Vince, Chad and I lived in Owensboro, KY for almost 10 years. The largest known sassafras tree is located on one of the main streets in Owensboro. Vince's best friend in Owensboro was Tom. His mother lived in the house where the tree was located and Tom had grown up in that house. The mom and Tom have both passed away but I was able to get leaves from that tree and make file'. I wish I would have kept some in a small bottle . . just for memories but that would have been something else Chad would find one day and think  . . oh, the clutter in this house . . and out it would go!  :)